The Receptionist, Adam Bock’s dark satire about the dark Arendtian currents in American corporate culture, returns to Off Broadway nearly a decade after its premiere in a solid, suitably creepy revival from Second Stage at the Pershing Square Signature Center. In some ways, Bock’s vision of the humdrum “Northeast office” of an unnamed outfit — furnished with wood laminate-topped desks, faded taupe carpeting, and windowed side offices hidden behind generic blinds (designed by dots) — seems almost quaint.
The busy-body receptionist, Beverly (Katie Finneran), has time to make coffee, chat with friends on the phone between answering calls to the main line, and run out for pastries before slipping out of her street shoes and back into her sensible one-inch office pumps. Unlike Jayne Houdyshell, who had an earth-mother quality when originating the role, Finneran brings a spikier, proto-Karen edge to a woman who clearly sees herself as a protector of the company’s image and standards (and dwindling supply of quality pens). She can pivot from hand-clapping, sweet-sneaking glee to stubborn by-the-rules authority at the drop of a Flex pen.
Beverly was effectively demoted from the central office two years ago, which perhaps explains the edge she brings to her interactions with the flirty junior executive, Lorraine (Mallori Johnson, projecting sweetness with a steely undercurrent), and to the oft-absent division chief, Edward (Nael Nacer). But when the pointedly named Martin Dart (Will Pullen, nicely bro-ish as well as by-the-book) turns up from the much vaunted Central Office, Bev turns obsequiously deferential — an instinctual response to authority that proves less smart as the show reaches its abrupt denouement.
Bock initially sketches this workplace in the broad strokes of an Office-like sitcom, but when the actual business of the place is revealed it underscores just how much we’ve taken all the surface blandness for granted. It’s a clever twist, and one that anticipates how 21st century corporations have taken to spying on employees — every phone call monitored, every keystroke recorded — and how willingly we’ve adjusted to the concomitant loss of privacy. Bock takes things much further, though, in ways that echo other developments in technology, security, and surveillance systems over the last two decades.
Sarah Benson directs the show efficiently, but there’s no escaping how slight The Receptionist feels, like a drawn-out episode of Netflix’s Black Mirror with an overlong, gently comedic windup. Once we get to the big reveal — and the fallout from a failed client visit that went horribly, unforgivably sideways — The Receptionist hurriedly wraps everything up. Rather than grappling with the serious issues that are raised, or the repercussions for characters we’ve gotten to know (if only a bit), The Receptionist leaves the equivalent of a call-be-back-later Post-it note on our monitor. ★★★☆☆
THE RECEPTIONIST
Pershing Square Signature Center, Off Broadway
Running time: 80 minutes (with no intermission)
Tickets on sale through May 24 for $66 to $136